A plethora of strategies creates unique solutions for each client
One size rarely fits all, and in the realm of employee benefits, few employers can buy a program “off the rack” that meets their goals for recruitment and retention.
Do you need high-tech employees who roll up their sleeves to write space-age computer code? White collar professionals that uphold the highest accounting and financial standards? Blue collar technology workers that meet deadlines and keep to budgets?
It takes a lot more than a standard health insurance policy to attract the best human capital. At Diversified Insurance Group in Salt Lake City, Utah, the ability to build unique one-of-a-kind employee benefit programs is what differentiates the agency from its competition, says Spencer Hoole, managing partner.
“It’s almost an arms race out there. Agents and brokers are competing aggressively for new business and all of them are looking for new arrows for their quiver. Our group has been particularly effective in looking beyond the horizon and staying a couple of steps ahead of the competition,” Hoole says.
Stricter regulations on compensation disclosure discussed at ERISA Advisory Council hearing
Cholesterol medication, blood pressure pills, arthritis pain relievers—baby boomers are taking a dozen or more daily prescription drugs to manage various maladies and conditions—some of them acute but more associated with prevention and aging.
The costs are huge, more than $260 billion annually, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and expected to increase 5.2% this year. But employers can take steps to reduce those costs, including the use of Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs), third party administrators of prescription drug benefits.
PBMs structure prescription drug benefits, manage co-pays and negotiate discounts with drug manufacturers and are supposed to pass their savings back to customers. But are employers getting all of the value out of their PBM agreements?
Susan Pilch, vice president of policy and regulatory affairs at the National Community Pharmacists Association in Alexandria, Virginia, says employers may not be sharing PBM discounts as deeply as they should—and need their agents and brokers to keep a closer check on the administrators.
Pilch, whose association represents local drug stores that often compete with PBM mail order prescription drug sales services and rely on PBM payments for local sales, says PBMs should be subject to stricter regulatory disclosure and available for careful audits of their income streams.
Transamerica foresees further voluntary growth ?as it builds an integrated benefits solution
For several years now the voluntary employee benefits business has been growing at a rapid clip. Transamerica Employee Benefits has been among the fastest growing of the major carriers in this market. Eastbridge Consulting ranked Transamerica first in business growth among the large voluntary carriers in 2012, and the company increased its voluntary business by an additional 14% in 2013.
“We’re having another great year of voluntary business growth in 2014,” says Jeff Caldwell, marketing director for Transamerica Employee Benefits.
More important for benefits brokers, Caldwell points to evidence that the overall voluntary growth wave is a long way from cresting. Harris Interactive conducted a national study for Transamerica a year ago which found that almost half (47%) of full-time U.S. employees covered by benefit plans had not been offered an additional voluntary product since health care reform was enacted in 2010.
“On some levels that’s great news for producers and benefit advisors,” says Caldwell. “They’re not too late to the game. The time to sell really is right now.”
Almost two thirds (62%) of the study respondents said they were at least somewhat likely to purchase voluntary products to respond to their family’s health care needs. Almost half (46%) said it was likely or very likely that they would remain at their current employer primarily due to the voluntary products package offered. The study data was compiled online by polling more than 2,000 employees.
